Personal communication, productivity, and entertainment devices such as cellular phones, portable email devices, tablet computers, e-books, hand-held games, portable media players, etc. (all referred to hereafter as “smart phones”) are known to include features such as graphical user interfaces on color touch screens, wireless Internet capability, support for ancillary applications (sometimes referred to as “apps”) such as, for example, calendars, email, maps and navigation, etc. Such ancillary applications may be pre-installed in a smart phone or may be made available for download by a user. Certain such apps may comprise an ability to issue commands to entertainment and other appliances, for example in conjunction with a GUI offering the features and functionality of a universal remote control as known in the art, in conjunction with a TV guide display to enable channel selection, etc. Since many appliance command protocols comprise transmission of a pulse train modulated onto an infrared (“IR”) carrier signal, it is desirable that smart phones be equipped with an IR transmitting means to support such apps. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,231,204 illustrates and describes a personal digital assistant (“PDA”) having an IR device (64) which is attached to a serial port (108) of the PDA.